angels high and low

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

hg writes on my comment:

>>john m re the Watts Towers
>
>> It's a wonderland, no foolin.  A place fit for archangels, and preterite too.
>
>Question: 
>If smelly squishy yucky ('real') garbage is part of the preterite's daily 
>slog, is gargabe-artistically-transformed still preterite? Or does preterite 
>only _become_ 'preterite' once one mixes artistic vision (schmision) 
>with junk, and then allows someone literate (enough) to look at it?
>

With his usual perspicacity (just enough), hg misses the point.  I was talking exactly 
about the fact that this is not high art (though those towers do manage to go up a 
ways.)  Rodia was not creating the Taj Mahal, nor  trying to.  Unlike too many 
potsings, the lack of pretension might be the most striking thing about the towers.  
and I wasn't putting quotation marks around the word preterite, hg, you were.  
Truth to tell, I felt a little uneasy about the connotations of--archangels--but wanted 
to  play  w/--Los Angeles.  I put in the closing thought precisely not to draw 
invidious high/low distinctions.  Sorry if I seemed to do so anyway.

john m